Pop quiz: When you hear the word Norway, what do you think of? Fjords? Oslo? Lutefisk? How about... CTA buses?
The CTA Bus Tracker web site has received over 15,000 hits from people in Norway or from computers and wireless devices that were registered there. Norwegians have visited the CTA site more times than any other country.
Um... huh?
Granted, some of them may have happened upon the site by accident. But according to the stats, 75 percent of the online visitors continued to click through the other pages and stayed on the site for nearly 20 minutes.
"Many people just like to watch buses on their computer, even if they are not planning a trip," CTA spokesperson Noelle Gaffney told the Chicago Tribune.
The Bus Tracker site reports the locations of buses in real time, offering estimated arrival times at listed stops. It currently covers 86 of the CTA's 153 bus routes, having recently added the much-anticipated #22-Clark and #36-Broadway.
While it's unlikely that thousands of Norwegians are just sitting at their computer watching our buses coming and going, they aren't the only ones interested in our public transit. Thousands of hits have come from Canada, the UK, and Germany.
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To any of our potential Norwegian readers, velkommen!
